South Florida filmmaker Ric O'Barry does nothing with subtlety.
The former trainer of dolphins for "Flipper" who became an animal activist took a brief moment as his film "The Cove" took home the award for best feature documentary at the Oscars last night to get a big bold message out to millions.
O'Barry, in near "Soy bomb"-like outrageousness, whipped out a big black and white sign reading "Text DOLPHIN to 44144."
"The Cove," of course, is O'Barry's epic, three-years-in-the-making, inside look at the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. It documents how fishermen heartlessly lure the mammals into a small cove where they're killed for meat or sold to zoos and aquariums.
Oscar braodcaster ABC didn't let viewers at home get much of a look at the sign, but O'Barry, who resides in Coconut Creek, got his point across nonetheless.
What is his point? Stopping the slaughter of dolphins in Japan and elsewhere, and he thinks once the film is screened in the Land of the Rising Sun, it'll do just that.
"When the film is seen in Japan, it will shut 'the cove' down permanently," O'Barry told Reuters.
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And with the film set to hit at least five Japanese theaters in May, it might do just that.
